Industry Awards

As part of the Africa Green Growth Forum, the Ministry of Environment in collaboration with NIRDA and the Resource Efficient and Cleaner Production Centre are co-organising the Rwanda Green Growth Industry Award for industries and SMEs which have demonstrated green growth best practices, including those related to resource efficiency and clean production.

OBJECTIVES

The Rwanda Green Growth Industry Awards aims to create an incentive, awareness and a recognition system for industries and SMEs to adopt green technologies that promote sustainable patterns of production and consumption that are resource and energy efficient, low-carbon and low waste, non-polluting and safe, and which produce products that are responsibly managed throughout their lifecycle. They also aims to raise awareness on how such green growth approaches reduce costs of production, while at the same time increasing environmental performance and competitiveness.

The awards aim to:

Recognise the best performing industries and SMEs in Resource Efficient and Cleaner Production

Enhance efficiency of consumption of resources (energy, water and material)

Reduce the pollution loading into the water bodies

Make enterprises environmentally compliant using profitable and voluntary approaches

Direct public attention towards the importance of Resource Efficiency and Cleaner Production as a tool for increased business productivity, competitiveness and environmental performance

AWARD CRITERIA

These criteria focus primarily on implementation of Resource Efficient and Cleaner Production technologies and techniques. The technologies and techniques include good housekeeping practices, technology change, process control, input substitution, equipment modification among others. The criteria have been designed to enable as many enterprises as possible to participate and to practice the concept of continuous improvement. The following base criteria will be considered:

Consumption of Resources: This criterion assesses at the amount of energy, water, raw materials saved per unit product/service and renewable energy adopted.

Source Reduction: This criterion requires that facilities focus on reducing pollution at source, as opposed to the reactive approach (end-of-pipe technologies).

Management commitment to RECP: This criterion assesses the level of the company’s management commitment in the introduction and implementation of RECP and that its achievements are being continually demonstrated.

Leadership: The criterion addresses a company’s openness, benefit sharing, level of compliance with effluent discharge standards, corporate and social responsibilities, communication regarding RECP and other environmental matters to workers and the surrounding community.

OBJECTIVES

Increase awareness about the opportunity for green growth innovation to drive transformation across Africa

Increase the number of young successful innovators with strong social innovative business models

Promote homegrown innovations and self-reliance among youth

Increase the number of youth accessing finance for their own businesses

Reduce the rate of unemployment among entrepreneurship

Reveal opportunities and challenges for young innovators

AWARD CATEGORIES

The following categories are proposed to capture the breath of green growth initiatives being undertaken by businesses across Rwanda.

Water Use Management Award

This Award will recognize the company that has achieved significant water use efficiency through the implementation of Resource Efficient and Cleaner Production initiatives.

Energy and GHG Management Award

This Award will recognize the company that has achieved the highest energy efficiency and introduced renewable energy and minimised greenhouse gas emissions.

Wastewater Management Award

This Award will recognize the company that has achieved significant wastewater minimisation and pollution load reduction through the implementation of Resource Efficient and Cleaner Production initiatives.

Material and Solid Waste Management Award

This Award is for the company that has achieved significant solid waste minimisation through the implementation of Resource Efficient and Cleaner Production initiatives.

Overall Corporate Green Growth Award

This is the overall Rwanda Green Growth Industry Award for the organization with outstanding initiatives demonstrating leadership, corporate social responsibilities, openness and communication regarding Resource Efficient and Cleaner Production and green growth.

Certificates

Recognition certificates will be distributed to those trained and who have applied the Resource Efficiency and Cleaner Production toolkit.

EVALUATION COMMITTEE

A committee to ensure effective implementation of the award programme will be chaired by the RCPC National Coordinator will comprise representatives from MINICOM, MoE, NIRDA, REMA, PSF, UR and RSB experts. This team will be responsible for reviewing the award criteria developed and making technical reports of the applications. After industry self-assessment, they shall make field visits to participating industries to verify what has been declared by industry and collect additional supportive information. This team will conduct the evaluation and scoring of applicants.

APPLICATION CRITERIA & PROCESS

Participation Criteria

All companies that participated in the RECP programme of LVEMP II from 2013 are eligible to participate.